Daily updates about Syria

10/27/2014

The Local Coordination Committees reported 90 deaths yesterday from airstrikes, including 10 women and 9 children.

41 of the dead were in Aleppo province.

23 of the dead were in Daraa province.

15 people from 1 family were killed in Busra al-Sham.

The Islamic State executed 4 men from the Sheitat Tribe in al-Bukumal in Deir Ez Zor on charges of joining a training camp run by the government for members of the Sheitat Tribe and fighting against the IS.

The Sheitat tribe was slaughtered after they revolted against the IS over the summer.

A spokesman for the Peshmerga, who will be sent from Iraq through Turkey to reinforce Kobani, said that they will be playing a support role and will not fight directly.

The 150 fighters will provide supporting fire with things such as artillery.

Rebel snipers around Handarat, just north of Aleppo city:

Harakat Hazm hits a tanks with a TOW in Sheikh Yousuf in Aleppo:

The Syrian National Coalition has begun to pave the roads in the Atma and Bab al-Salama refugee camps in Aleppo after a series of incidents in which rain completely flooded the dirt roads and turned much of the camps into mud.

The offensive was launched from the north, south, and west by at least 15 groups.

This is the first major rebel assault on the city since summer 2013. It comes after significant rebel losses in northern Hama, particularly Morek last week, which strengthened government supply lines to Idlib.

4 civilians were killed in the fighting.

At least 10 soldiers were killed by 4 JaN suicide bombers who hit checkpoints outside the south and east of the city.

Rebels cut-off government access to the city after capturing checkpoints around the south of it.

Airstrikes hit the area, including the towns and villages surrounding Idlib, and killed at least 9 fighters.

JaN stormed the Governor’s Building near the western entrance of the city, before withdrawing with a reported 2 captured tanks and 12 captured soldiers.

The government was able to re-capture the Governor’s Building and the Police Headquarters.

US General John Allen said that the US does not plan for the rebels it will be training to fight Assad, they will only be fighting the Islamic State.

He said that there will not be a military solution to the conflict, but Assad and the rebels will have to eventually make a deal with each other.

“What we would like to see is for the FSA and the forces that we will ultimately generate, train and equip to become the credible force that the Assad government ultimately has to acknowledge and recognize.”

Jabhat al-Nusra captured a government checkpoint near Halboon in Qalamoun.

They were able to seize weapons and ammo from the checkpoint as well.

They were able to fight off a counter-attack by Hezbollah after capturing the checkpoint.

Coalition airstrikes against the Islamic State continued.

In al-Hasakah province, airstrikes targeted the IS around Mt. Adulaziz and Maghluja.

5 areas in Kobani in Aleppo were hit.

A video by the IS showing damage caused by coalition airstrikes. The IS has kept very tight control over media and casualty figures from the strikes:

Colonel Mohammad Kaddour, the military governor of al-Hasakah city, said that he will soon declare the city a safe zone.

Yesterday the government removed a number of recently-installed checkpoints from the city of al-Hasakah.

The city has been much calmer since last month, when an agreement was signed with gunmen in the Gweiran neighborhood, allowing them to withdraw. The fighting in the city saw the YPG working with government forces to try and consolidate their hold on the city in the face of Islamic State advances in the region.

A jury in London ruled that Abbas Khan, an orthopedic surgeon from London who was detained in Syria 2 years ago and then found dead in a prison cell last December, was killed unlawfully.

He was detained by the government within 2 days of arriving in Aleppo to volunteer as an emergency doctor. The jury rejected the government’s claim that he had hanged himself before his scheduled release.

The British Foreign Office said it is reviewing the next steps to take.

Over the weekend the International Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent delivered aid to 95,000 people in rebel-controlled eastern rural Aleppo.

Food was delivered to 95,000 people. 46,000 people received aid such as mattresses and water buckets. 4,000 children received school supplies.